


Agoraphobia

by blastocyst



Series: Spooky Art Challenge [3]
Category: DRAMAtical Murder
Genre: Brain Damage, Gen, Implied Child Abuse, Muteness, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-07
Updated: 2014-10-07
Packaged: 2018-02-20 07:45:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2420702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blastocyst/pseuds/blastocyst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Open eyes mean yes. Closed eyes mean no.</p><p>[Written for day seven of the <a href="http://spoopyartchallenge.tumblr.com/post/98009756313/what-better-way-to-celebrate-halloween-then-a-31">Spooky Art Challenge</a>.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Agoraphobia

 

   Everyone talks about Sei in the future tense.

   They say that he  _will_ wake up from the coma. He will open his eyes, and then he _will_  blink, make sounds, twitch his fingers and toes as the muscles gradually regain their strength. As his body accustoms to movement, he will be able to sign, and control his own wheelchair, and stay awake for more than a few hours at a time. Then, he will speak with a raw throat, and he will walk on shaky legs, and after many years and months of physical therapy, he _will_ , probably, have a normal life.

   Nobody talks about the things he's already done; the progress he's already made. Like the fact that he can, sometimes, move his fingers enough to type coherently on a keyboard. Or the way that, somehow, he can always show when he's listening, attentive; and when he's bored and wants to be alone, even though the expression on his face barely changes.

   His survival, the most important and precious step of all, has never once been praised by any of the doctors.

   His achievements so far are at the bare minimum standard for a living person, but Aoba has never been more proud.

 

  
~*~

  
   Open eyes mean yes. Closed eyes mean no.

   It's the first signal they establish together. Aoba must read at least a dozen books on non-verbal communication, haired tied back so he can focus, sprawled across his bed with Sei dozing beside him. He reads snippets aloud in a thoughtful voice, but doesn't look to his twin for his reaction.

   It's hard, sometimes, to tell whether he's asleep or awake.

  
~*~

 

  
   The professionals insist that time outside is the best aid for depression, and mutism, and catatonia, and bedsores, and every other ailment Sei comes down with during his early recovery. Most days, Aoba comes home from work to find his twin sitting in front of his bedroom window, gazing out at the rooftops and trees of the Old Resident's District, eyes almost unmoving, breath coming very slightly faster. Aoba will sit with him, and point out the homes of the neighbours he's friendly with, and describe the mid-autumn scents of wet leaves and rain and bonfires and the feeling of warm sun through a cold breeze, a myriad of other things that Sei has never known.

   Black eyes stay open.

   Sei isn't heavy, but it becomes apparent that for all her mettle, Tae can't carry a twenty-three-year-old around the house, though she'd never admit it. It falls to Aoba to transport his twin from chair to bed, bed to bath, upstairs to downstairs.

   The first touches are hesitant, because Aoba has met enough strangers in his years to know that not everyone likes foreign hands on them.

   If Sei can flinch, he doesn't. And his eyes stay open.

   Aoba swears that when he lays a hand on Sei's shoulder or brushes his hair back from his face, he can feel the muscles beneath his skin straining to push up against the contact, even though it shouldn't be possible.

   Even after Sei's protruding bones recede beneath his skin, Aoba can lift him. He takes him down to the kitchen one afternoon, when the pavements are slick with rainfall and the air is cool and crisp. It's hell to get the chair down the front steps with Sei in it, so he has to carry him out, bridal-style. They're one step into the street when the side of Sei's head suddenly thuds against Aoba's shoulder, and when Aoba looks down, his twin's eyes are shut tight against the outside world.

 

  
~*~

 

  
   "It's always night in Platinum Jail." Tae scolds him over dinner that night; because of course, he'd happened to plan their little excursion for when she was out seeing a patient, and of course, when she'd come home to find Aoba looking guilty and Sei sulking under a blanket on the couch, she had been furious. "He's never been out in the sun before, you idiot."

   It dawns on Aoba, slowly, how true that is. He'd been unconscious when they brought him to the hospital, and unconscious when he came home.

   And he wouldn't be much of a captured princess if they let him walk around in the streets of Platinum Jail anyway, would he? For all Aoba knew, his escape attempt could have been the only fresh air he'd ever felt - if the filtered, sweet-smelling air of that place could be considered fresh at all.

   "Don't push him." Tae clubs him on the back of the head with a half chopped zucchini, but not as hard as she could have. "He's been through more than you could even imagine."

 

  
~*~

 

  
   In bed that night, Aoba pulls the covers over both their heads and whispers permission for Sei to look into his eyes the way that only Sei can.

   In the white of their shared subconscious, Sei breathes, "Brother." He brushes his hair back from his face on his own.

   "Sei." Aoba smiles. They don't do this often - if the subsequent migraines and nosebleeds are any indication, even if their Scrap is supposed to be used on others, it certainly wasn't designed for each other. But when they can steal a moment, it's nice to hear Sei's voice. Aoba can't shake the feeling that, in the physical world, he never will.  
  
   Sei looks away to his left, even though there's nothing here to look at. In the vast emptiness of Scrap, the only things that exist are their bodies. Absent-mindedly, he twirls a strand of pale hair around his finger. "When are you going to do it?"

   A beat of silence.

   "I can't," Aoba says, his usual response, and maybe there's more than one reason why they don't do this often. "It would be murder." He steps forward to clasp one hand with his twin's, giving a reassuring little squeeze that Sei doesn't return. "You'll get better."

 

~*~

 

  
   "Isn't it nice?" Aoba rests his hands on the handles of Sei's wheelchair, but doesn't move him. "it's not like in Platinum Jail, right? There are clouds..." He can just barely recall that stark, black sky, dotted with huge, incredibly close, white stars. "It's real."

   He was notified by Ren as soon as he came in the door; that Sei, in a moment of dexterity, had requested via his keyboard to be placed in front of Aoba's bedroom window several hours ago. He hadn't fallen asleep since; his heartbeat was steady, breathing relaxed, eyes transfixed.

   "I wish we lived somewhere where you could see the snow." Aoba sighs wistfully. Just because they can travel outside of Midorijima doesn't mean he necessarily ever will - that _they_  ever will. Inspired, leans over so he can see Sei's face, and very carefully asks, "Sei? Do you want to go out on the balcony with me?"

   Against all odds, his eyes stay open. If Aoba didn't know better, he'd think he even saw a little nod.

   He lifts Sei from his chair carefully, making sure to support him completely before he opens the balcony door with his elbow and steps outside. His sibling trembles in his arms, but he seems determined, not closing his eyes for a moment. It's cold, but not cold enough to penetrate Sei's warm loungewear, and Aoba lowers him into one of the deck-chairs that's permanently out there, a remnant from the days when Koujaku would visit, just the two of them. Even through the gloom, he can see his twin's eyes glint with the light reflected from the window.

   "You can blink," he jokes, and Sei looks at him, and does. Aoba is sure he would smile, if he could.

   Aoba leaves the door open and settles into the other chair. Despite the chill, it's a nice night; almost silent and still, with only the stars for company. When he looks back, Sei has returned his gaze to the sky, eyes wide, as though he couldn't possibly look anywhere else.

   Aoba makes a mental note to study the constellations so that he can teach them to Sei, to give them something to talk about out here in the darkness. "Does it remind you of there?" he says instead, voice quiet enough that Sei could choose to pretend not to hear, if he wanted to.

   Instead, he closes his eyes,  _no._ _  
_


End file.
